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Monday, 13 January 2014

Our Trip To Drusillas Zoo!

Last weekend was the final weekend of the Xmas festivities, so what better way to end the holiday than a family day trip!

I took Chunk, my nephew Curly, Uncle Rich and Nanny to Drusillas, a family zoo that kindly gave me tickets to check out their final day of Xmas themed events, including a fab light show, great Xmas decorations, and a sit-on sleigh.

The Zoo, based in Alfriston, starts with an indoor display about animals around the world, and you can take booklets that allow the kids to hunt for different animals and then stamp the book to say they've found them. My toddlers had great fun using this, and I had to prise them away from each stamping post to let other kids get a look in...

We got to weigh ourselves to see what animals weigh the same, and I was shocked to see I currently weigh the same a a kangaroo... diet began shortly afterwards!

We then saw the monkeys, before reaching the outdoors, where we saw a great interactive singing display, which the boys loved running around and pressing each animal to hear them sing. The monkey was my favourite, as he had a great accent!

We visited flamingos, penguins, guinea pigs, horses, cows and many more, including a very cute meerkat sunning himself under a lamp to keep warm. I loved the well-thought out positioning of all the animals, and the little activities they would connect with these, such as a running test to tell you which animal you are as fast as, long jump, hanging from a pole to compare your time to a monkey and screaming inside a telephone box to compare the decibels you can reach to a list of animals. These activities appealed to both the children and the adults, and I found myself having a screaming competition with Uncle Rich, which the boys found absolutely hilarious.

We then headed into the creepy crawlies section, full of snakes, lizards, turtles and even tarantulas. Chunk loved getting up close to the tarantula (which was thankfully behind strong glass), because his favourite word is 'spider' so this was screamed continuously until we left that area, much to the amusement of passers by!

By this point, we were getting hungry, so we chose to eat in one of their restaurants, the Explorer's Cafe. I found the meals to be a tad pricey, with the average meal costing nearly £7, but I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the food; The boys had chicken nuggets, which were really chunky, flavoursome and not the usual greasy rubbish you can get in some fast food chains.

Near the restaurant was the Thomas the Tank Engine train ride, and due to it being winter, Thomas was wearing ear muffs! The boys love Thomas, and enjoyed trying to find the other train characters along the journey. The zoo bring The Fat Controller to life at times throughout the year, as well Peppa Pig and Scooby Doo, so think we shall plan our next visit to coincide with one of these.

After the train, the boys wanted to let off some steam in the gigantic play area, which has two separate areas for each age range.

Go Bananas is for under 6s, and features a playhouse, super sliders, swings, aerial walkways and trampolines. Go Wild is the area for older kids, and features banana boats, a safari jeep, helter skelter and much more.

It then started to pour with rain, so we had to cut our visit short, meaning we missed out on the Eden Eye Maze, but we did notice a Hello Kitty Secret Garden is being built for Spring which looks like little girl heaven!

For slightly older children (aged 6+) there are additional activities you can purchase, including Keeper for the Day, feeding animals, birthday packages, and you can also adopt one of the animals in the park.

Overall we had a great time, it was just a shame the rain cut our day short. I will definitely be looking into an annual pass so we can visit regularly, especially for the play area, which is the perfect way to tire my boys out!